SMB freezing (Just a coincidence?)

[tramadolcykv]

Hi guys. I have been reading through the forums for about a week now and would like to say thanks for all the time spent on this project. I installed this program a long time ago when it was 1.01 i believe, and just never used it. When i found out that the ability to stream media to my wii arose, i was extactic. As i read up on the subject i found two highly possiblitys of achieving a streaming media center on the wii. At first i had some troubles getting it to work, from about 10pm to about 3am i tried to configure it to work, finaly i got it. Then i noticed the next day that i too was suffering from the movie stream freezing and then eventualy crashing and then error screen with reboot. I was sitting here today and managed to get through a whole movie, using jhb50’s(i think thats right)pause trick. i was able to pause it for a few seconds and then resume the movie, i would do this about every 8 or so mins. I was able to get through the whole movie this way. After that i started thinking about how when i watch netflix on my wii, it does the same thing….i can be watching a movie and after a while it will freeze and then it has to reload from where it was to keep playing….is this a conincidence? Im just wondering how hard it would to be decompile netflix and figure out how they get the movie to continue? Or even better decompile it and then take the engine or should i say the movie player and just make it to work for wiimc? Has anyone else been thinking in the same direction as i? Anyways, just some random thoughts……

[DeadlyRobots]

i have too noticed that streaming sucks on the wii, its not fluid as in a simple stream, rather it takes bites out of the file at a time.

sort of like BITE PAUSE BITE PAUSE BITE PAUSE

at least thats how the graph looks on my LAN when i stream a movie to my wii.

[tramadolcykv]

well from what i understand about how things work, even youtube works somewhat like that, since you have to upload a small file i can just load and then buffer the vid., alot like how netflix works. But what i meant in my post is, i find it very coincidental, uncanny how its soo like wiimc smb share ability….i think that someone should look into the coding that netflix uses on the wii….it could be exactly what we need….to solve the freeze problem, buffer problem, cache fill problem….anyways i know that some people have said that they can take a game disk and extract certain files that are in a .iso file. I was just thinking that this could be the case. Maybe there is someone out there that can and knows how to do this and could decompile whatever software is used for netflix and somehow build off of that framework, to fix whatever problems there are in the video section….again just random thoughts. If anyone else out there knows what i mean please feel free to comment. :geek:

[rodries]

The code is completely different in so many ways, that this wouldn’t be useful.

[cadbusca]

I appreciate the credit for the “pause trick” but this is the first I have heard of it and I’d like to know more. Can anyone post a shortcut to the original post reporting this “trick'”?

PS: I also think you are refering to file sharing using SMB, where the WIIMC is reading directly from the shared directory on the PC. Streaming is where the PC sends an http stream to the network and WIIMC is able to connect to and play that stream using its OnLineMedia mode.

My question is does this hangup playing a long movie only occur when using SMB or does it also occur when playing the same movie from a locally attached USB drive. The former would indicate a network problem and the latter a WIIMC/MPlayer corruption problem.

[tramadolcykv]

I dont use wiimc to play files from usb drive, so cant say if it is a problem with that. But, yes i was refering to SMB share, so there is a difference between that and streaming? How do i stream via http?

PS,Oh you mean like i stream it to my network and then just connect to the signal via wiimc?

PSS, The trick i was refering to was to simply press pause when it starts to freeze, and then either unpause it or rewind back and then play the movie again…..i dont remember where i read it…….

Re: Anyone that is having problems with smb freezing
by Tantric » Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:38 am

I never ever have a SMB freeze with my lan adapter. But on wifi I do have them sometimes.

So it’s definitely related to wifi somehow. That’s all I know.

Tantric thinks the problem is with the wifi…as do i….but as i stated in another post it ended up working with another movie, i was able to watch it all the way through. So i think that i was trying to watch a movie that was over the size limit 670 x 1080 or whatever it is…..

[cemnaccemoHox]

Think of the buffer in the Wii like a swimming pool.
The stream of video is the stream of water filling up the pool, the process of playing the video is an outflow of information emptying the pool. If the pool isn’t being filled quickly enough it will empty and the outflow will stop. When you pause the video you are switching off the outflow to let the pool fill up again.

Films with higher bitrates and resolutions need a big pool, because a lot of water (info) needs to flow out more quickly. Higher resolutions have other implications too, ie the graphics card cant actually process all that info quickly enough.

The Wii has a pretty small pool (in comparison with a PS3, xbox 360, most decent PCs, etc) so we need to fill it faster. That is why ther LAN adapter is always preferable for both SMB and net streaming, it is way faster than Wifi and with less overheads and free from other issues such as interference and signal strength. This counts for the wii and any other computer or attached storage.

You can also check the filesize of the film: an hour and a half long move at 1.5GB will have a much higher bitrate than the same movie at 700MB in size, and so the Wii might struggle with it a bit.

[tramadolcykv]

ROFLMFAO!!! That a great way to put it Seej. Just exactly what are the wifi specs? Anyone know? I know im going to buy a lan adapter, just cant wait to see the difference it makes. Ive read alot of ppl are saying that its like night and day.

[rodries]

Actually I find my usb lan adapter buffers slower than wifi.

But yes, the difference is like night and day in the sense that I’ve never ever had a crash on the usb lan adapter. Not even once.

So I’m not so sure (using your metaphor) that the pool is empty, it seems more like the “scoop” is breaking 😉

[cadbusca]

@Artisian wrote:

I dont use wiimc to play files from usb drive, so cant say if it is a problem with that. But, yes i was refering to SMB share, so there is a difference between that and streaming? How do i stream via http?

PS,Oh you mean like i stream it to my network and then just connect to the signal via wiimc?

&

So i think that i was trying to watch a movie that was over the size limit 670 x 1080 or whatever it is…..

You got it right. You might want to read my post on using streaming to play your HD files on the WII. http://www.wiimc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=405

Also http://www.wiimc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=224 for what will play directly on the WII.

[cadbusca]

I appreciate the buffering info above.

It would be useful to know what WIIMC does if it runs out of info in the buffer. WIIMC issues a “Loading” message which I’m guessing is while it waits for the buffer to load the amount specified in Settings, then one may get a White overlay “Buffering xx% message” which again I’m guessing means WIIMC ran out of buffer and again is loading the amout dictated by Settings. If my guesses are correct I think the best strategy is to set the buffer to 100% which may take longer to “load” but should reduce the requirement to “buffer”.

[DeadlyRobots]

the idea is to fill the buffer while its playing not while its paused. We wanna play straight through, surely it will “fill the pool” while you are playing it in real time. I am sure it can download at a faster rate that which the video plays at.

[rodries]

When you click on a video, you see the Loading… message. At this time MPlayer is loading and looking for a codec that can play the video. Then, the video will start playing. Immediately it’s detected the buffer is low, so you see “Buffering…” message. This attempts to buffer the % of the cache (12 MB) that you’ve set in the settings. Default is 30% so that’d be 3.6 MB of the video. Once that’s full, the video starts playing. From there, buffering is happening while you’re watching. If the buffer runs low (eg: < 4%), the video is paused and "Buffering…" is displayed. The cache is filled back up to 30%, and once that's reached, the video is unpaused.

If I do something like unplug my USB LAN adapter or shut off my server, the cache keeps attempting to refill itself, and the video is played until the cache runs out. When this happens, you’re booted back to the WiiMC main menu, and your files are listed.

So what’s happening then to cause a crash? If I knew exactly I’d probably be able to fix it. But perhaps somehow some “bad” (unexpected?) data is coming through SMB (only on wifi?). This data is put in the cache, which then MPlayer doesn’t know how to process, and it crashes. Just a theory.

[DeadlyRobots]

its actually what I was thinking as well, I think wiimc is getting data, but at some point it turns south and doesn’t know what to do with the mismatch.

[cadbusca]

Well, I don’t buy the bad data theory because the transport needs to be reliable given SMB was developed and is used in a business context. If a packet doesn’t check it will be resent so what you get is what was in the original file.

Investigation however shows that SMB is a block protocol rather than a streaming one and subject to a lot of overhead in sending data across the LAN. See http://blogs.technet.com/b/neilcar/archive/2004/10/26/247903.aspx for a fairly simple explanation… so bottom line, make sure you are not P2Ping or creating other LAN traffic at the same time, and make sure your wireless is operating at its rated speed. The Windows Task Manager on W7 shows my current link speed, which varies by my distance from my router. Right now its 24Mbps, can drop to 18 or go up to 36. But I used to get 54Mbps so I need to follow some of the tips at http://www.astahost.com/info.php/Improve-Wireless-Speed_t12885.html I don’t know the speed of the WII wireless adapter. Apparently there have been some speed improvements to it as well.

I will try and do more testing of this, in particular local USB vs SMB to the same USB drive on my PC. I’m not convinced yet that there is any particular SMB problem but time will tell.

[Author]

Posts